Page 29 of Locked & Loaded

“Yeah,” I say, feeling my cheeks heat up just because he’s talking to me. “You?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Like a baby.”

I smile at him before I can stop myself, and he smiles back.

Silence settles again. It should be awkward, but it isn’t, which is somehow worse, because awkward I know how to handle. This tender, careful thing between us is completely new territory, and I have no idea how to navigate it.

Thankfully, that’s when I hear metal slam against metal outside our compartment—a door between the cars being opened and closed.

I’m on my feet before I think about it, crossing the space in two strides and hammering my palm against our own door. “Hey! We’re stuck in here! The door’s jammed!”

For a second, nothing happens.

Then a muffled male voice comes from the corridor, saying something in another language, followed by the hard clack of someone trying the door.

Nothing.

He tries again. The mechanism gives a dull metal thunk, but the door doesn’t move.

Another muttered sentence comes through the metal, this one sounding a lot less patient.

“I think he just said ‘fuck you’ in Norwegian,” Mads says, one eyebrow raised.

“What, seriously?” I say.

Mads chuckles, shaking his head. “No idea. My Norwegian is mostly limited to swear words and hockey insults, so maybe I’m projecting.”

I snort.

The man outside says something else, sharper this time, then his footsteps move away. A second later, I hear the heavy bang of the connector door opening, then closing again.

I stay by the door for another second, listening. When nothing else happens, I sit down on the edge of my bunk and look back at Mads.

“Well,” I say. “I hope he comes back.”

Mads grins at me. “I’m choosing to believe he went for tools.”

I look back at the door, listening for any sign of the conductor. For a minute, there’s nothing but the rattle of the train and the wind hissing through the broken vent.

Then the footsteps return.

For twenty seconds, there’s only the scrape of metal against metal. Then the door groans and slides open about six inches before catching again. The conductor—a thin guy with a gray mustache and the tired expression of someone who’s seen every possible thing that can go wrong on a train—peers through the gap, a pry bar in his hand.

“The door is stuck,” he says in barely accented English, like it’s still not obvious.

“Yes,” I say.

He nods once, very seriously. Then he pulls the pry bar free, mutters something under his breath, and disappears from view again. I hear him rummaging through what sounds like a toolbox before he comes back with a longer pry bar.

This time, he wedges it into the gap with both hands and shoves. The door groans again, louder this time, then finally slides open all the way, warmer corridor air spilling into our freezing compartment.

The conductor steps inside, and his eyes immediately catch on the broken vent. Then he notices the snow on the floor.

For a second, he just stares.

Then he points at the vent. “What the hell happened here?”

I don’t even blink. “The glass fell out. Last night. We were sleeping, and there was this crack, and then it just dropped outside.”